


Hey There Soulmate

by anonymousstoryperson



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Names on wrists, Not Steve Friendly, Soulmate AU, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Well - Freeform, Wrong Name, aliens have different marks, cos we clearly dont have enough of these yet, he was a little bit, loki wasnt the bad guy in The Avengers, when am i ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:01:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22803748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousstoryperson/pseuds/anonymousstoryperson
Summary: We are born with two names on our wrists. One is your soulmate. One is your enemy. Tony thinks he's figured his out.
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark, one sided Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 518





	Hey There Soulmate

Tony always thought that he was lucky when it came to his soulmate marks. Some people agonised their whole lives over which one was their true love and which was their worst enemy. Some poor bastards had even been recorded with the same name on each wrist. Either way, differentiating the two was usually a struggle for most.

Tony had known which was which since he was very little.

After all, who could hate Captain America?

Of course, he had also been heartbroken when the name appeared, because his soulmate was dead. He’d never get to meet him except through the stories Howard told him when he remembered he had a kid and he wasn’t meant to hate him. Or just when he got nostalgic. It was always a toss-up between the two.

So several decades later, when he finds out the good Captain is actually alive, he’s ecstatic. It doesn’t seem real, but it seems as though whoever’s up there finally decided that Tony had suffered enough.

Of course, he also finds out about his fated enemy that day, too.

The other name on his other wrist, Loki, had been a puzzle for him, the one he never really tried to solve. After all, if he didn’t have his soulmate, why would he look for the person destined to hate him? His curiosity spiked briefly about a year ago when he realised the surname had changed from Odinson to Laufeyson, to then disappear entirely all within about three days. Maybe he married then divorced, but that wouldn’t explain the lack of surname.  
But Tony didn’t want to find him, so it didn’t matter.

Then he didn’t have a choice, and met both at once.

Arriving in Stuttgart, JARVIS hacking SHIELD’s jet to give him a killer entrance, he saw his soulmate fighting his enemy in what looked to be a pretty even fight. Tony tipped the odds, flying down and shooting Loki with twin repulsors, sending him sprawling on the steps several feet away as he landed in a crouch and aimed for him again, just in case. “Make your move, Reindeer Games.”

Loki frowned at the phrase as if confused, but slowly raised his hands in surrender. 

Captain America came up to stand beside him, two allies against an enemy, and Tony felt the one certainty in his life cement itself in truth forever.

That ultimate truth of the universe is tested fairly quickly.

Steve seems to hate him on principle, looking down on him and his antics, and Tony can’t find it within himself to be surprised. Of course he would mess up even a universe-planned relationship. That’s more his superpower than his brain ever was. 

He can’t really focus on that with a literal invasion happening, but at the same time it’s being shoved in his face from all sides. His soulmate hates him. His enemy just blew up the Helicarrier. His soulmate helped him fix one of the engines without dying. His enemy just killed Coulson. 

His enemy is standing in his tower and chuckling at his antics.

That was something he didn’t expect, then he gets thrown out the window which he _definitely_ didn’t expect, and then the invasion is happening and that is the priority.

Then he’s flying into a wormhole with a nuke on his back and the ship is so big and this is just one army and Earth is so vulnerable-

Then he’s being woken by the roar of the Hulk on a broken New York road, and Steve is knelt beside him and smiling at him like he couldn’t be happier. 

“We won.”

Then came Ultron and trust and Wanda and the accords and Tony is lying on freezing concrete in the middle of nowhere-ville Siberia. His left rocket boot is broken from the fight and by the time FRIDAY gets a new suit out here hypothermia will have done its damage. His fingers are already stiff, and each time he does the calculation his time gets longer and his chances get worse.

He still needs to fix Rhodey’s legs.

Forcing himself out of his suit- because if help has to bring him home an empty armour is easier to carry- he stares at his wrists. For years, the distinction was clear, so obvious that it would take an idiot to get it wrong. Now the cement is falling away like sand and nothing makes sense and everything does.  
How could Steve be his enemy, but how could he think he was his perfect match? The man out of time and the man ahead of his; one who had learned to accept casualties of war and one who couldn’t. Steve hadn’t trusted him, hadn’t liked him, from the get-go, and you’d think a genius would figure out that soulmates were meant to at least get along.

Of course, this train of thought also led him to another part of this whole catastrophe. If Steve wasn’t his soulmate, there was only one other person it could be.

“Stark.”

Speak of the devil.

As if he had been there the whole time, Loki was standing a few feet away in the bunker. His hair was less greasy and he looked less ill, but it was definitely him. 

“Hey soulmate.” He managed, not managing the attempted smile.

Loki came forward. “You knew all this time?”

“Not quite. Ours is a bit more complicated.”

Shaking fists turned outward to put the names on display, and the anger warmed him enough to create a bitter grin. “Guess I guessed wrong.”

Loki crouched slowly, watching Tony carefully as he did so, but no protest came forward, so he ended up beside him, holding the wrist marked by his name.

Tony felt a second of disappointment that his hand wasn’t warm enough to offer any relief from the bitter cold, before Loki’s free hand summoned a ball of fire that split into two, then four, then eight that floated over him, offering warmth all over.

“Which is your most pressing injury?” he heard through the fog of his sudden relief, and he managed to gesture to his chest. “Artificial sternum. Vibranium shield. Not a great combo on this end.”

Loki nodded, letting go of the wrist to survey the damage. When he noticed Tony’s discomfort, he began to speak. “When I met you for the first time, I was not in my right mind. The mind stone does more than amplify your worst emotions after a while- you end up forgetting your better ones. So when the phrase I had been waiting for my whole life was spoken, I didn’t realise its importance until I was locked away in Asgard and my own person again. I tried scrying in hopes of watching you, but the wards of Asgard’s cells are too strong for even that subset of spell. Now and then something would slip through, but never anything substantial. It wasn’t until Thor recruited me for his revenge plan that I managed to escape back to Midgard.”  
Well, that made Tony feel slightly better about his soulmate being an alien invader.

“Getting to this realm was the easy part. Finding you was not. Even when I found the new residence of your team none of you were in sight. It took a mastering of your world’s information archives just to track you to Germany. In the end I had no choice but to reopen my connection to Barton and find out what he knew.”

Tony scoffed weakly, remembering what the bastard said to him on the Raft. “Hope he felt it.”

“I’m sure he’ll blame it on the psychological effects of his confinement.”

By this point, the healing was just about complete.

“Healing is not my forte, especially on other people- I mostly learned to heal my own injuries- so this will scar, but your sternum is in the right shape, at least. Do you have someone on their way?”

“My AI should have a suit here in a few hours but that’s it. I promised to come alone.”

“Then you can cancel the suit. My way of travelling is far more efficient.”


End file.
